We thought the idea of popping air bubbles on sneakers as a way to get off was the weirdest thing to come out of the sneaker world, until we saw this. Dutch artists Pinar & Viola introduced us to the term "sneakerslaves" a year ago when they wrote an eye-opening article for Dazed about the subculture of foot fetishists who have a thing for kicks.
In a recent performance during the Gabber Expo in Paris, the duo brought the underground culture to the surface, making a sneakerslave lick their Nike Air Maxes in the most cringe-worthy way imaginable. Lucky for you, there is video footage, so your imagination doesn't have to work that hard:
In an interview with Dazed, Viola said that she and Pinar wanted to put themselves "into the shoes of what’s often associated with men – we wanted to go beyond sneakerheads and introduce women into it." She added that "you do have girls in sneaker fetish scenes as well, but they wear basketball sneakers with super short skirts or old-fashioned tennis shoes with virginal white panties. It’s made for the gaze of men. What I like about what we did is we put ourselves into a very sexy position, but in a very masculine way."
Pinar told Dazed that the reaction to the performance was different than past performances in that people would not look at them afterwards. "The gaze of people is your payday. But this time, people were trying to avoid my eyes! And then I realized the power of what we did. We made people feel uncomfortable, and that’s very hard – and not in a penis-showing way. That’s what I felt, the power and charm of discomfort."
[via Dazed Digital]
